Habermas: Dialectics, Ethics, and Social Theory

Abstract

In sum, here is what Habermas did to the Marxist dialectic. He abandoned dialectical materialism for a return to a dialectical Kantian emphasis on individual autonomy and reason. Then he abandoned the self-reflective dialectic of Kant for an externalized communicative dialectic of the Socratic type. But it wasn’t a simple going back to the ancient form. He took with him the implicit Marxist assumption of a tendency to equality in human nature which added a new element…an element that had never existed in the methodology and thought of Socrates and Plato.

For a norm to be valid…the satisfaction of the particular interests of each person affected must be such that all affected can accept them freely

(J. Habermas 1990: 20)